The Obama Administration found itself in “uncharted territory” as the scope of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections became clear to senior officials, a report issued on Thursday by the Senate Intelligence Committee found.
No one watched Dumps shitshow this year
A total of 15.9 million viewers watched Trump across the four major broadcast networks, a decline of 21% from the ratings he earned on those networks in 2019.
"The Obama administration issued “high-level warnings of potential retaliation” to Moscow, “but tempered its response over concerns about appearing to act politically on behalf of one candidate, undermining public confidence in the election, and provoking additional Russian actions.”
Damned if you do Damned if you don’t.
There is very little that a Scumbag Party majority has anything to say that should be taken seriously.
Only the flock.
" Fox News Only Network to Tick Up"
“…Richard Burr (R-NC)…”
A total snake, in on it from the start, and never to be trusted:
“As a member of the Gang of Eight (the eight lawmakers informed of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence matters), Burr was briefed by the CIA on its judgment that Russia was working to aid Trump. You wouldn’t have known it from Burr’s public statements before the election. ‘I have yet to see anything that would lead me to believe that’s the case,’ Burr told Foreign Policy in October 2016.”
The report marks the third volume in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s years-long investigation of Russia’s interference campaign in the 2016 election.
Meanwhile, in the real world known as the GOP controlled Senate:
After “the Democratic-led House passed the “Securing America’s Federal Elections Act” (SAFE Act), which would, among other things, require voting systems to use backup paper ballots, mandate tech safeguards, and provide resources to states to improve their election-security measures,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) blocked the effort to pass the bill in the Senate.
After “the House also passed the Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy (SHIELD) Act, which would, among other things, require candidates to notify law enforcement authorities in the event of a foreign power offering campaign assistance,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Москва) said his GOP-led chamber would ignore this bill, too.
Thanks Mitch! Be sure to not pass anything that would stand in the way of your paymaster’s influence this election cycle.
It’s very understandable why the Obama administration acted so meekly on this front. They had R’s at all levels undermining their efforts, concerns of genuinely interfering in a national election, a lack of ready at hand countermeasures and an unprecedented threat type and sophistication to deal with. All that said, OBAMA SHIT THE BED by the acting so meekly. The next Dem president must learn from this that they cannot put those kinds of concerns ahead of the right thing to do. Yes, R’s should be held to that same standard, but I don’t expect criminals to start reporting their own crimes.
"The Obama administration issued “high-level warnings of potential retaliation” to Moscow, “but tempered its response over concerns about appearing to act politically on behalf of one candidate, undermining public confidence in the election, and provoking additional Russian actions.”
This means that a Republican led committee announced that the Obama’s actions were because they were trying NOT to help Clinton, which means Obama’s actions helped Trump.
Assuming you’re not being facetious like last time, I again have to say you’re presenting an opinion as a self-evidently true premise. If you think that Maureen Dowd crap is true, try the thought experiment of getting a meek, reticent person elected as the first black president of the United States. How would you do that, exactly? How do you get the guy into the Senate basically on his own? How would it be possible?
Tell me again why Trump is doing whatever is in the best interest of Russia? We go from threatening Russia with sanctions for interfering in our election to removing sanctions and letting them build an aluminum plant. You want me to believe there is no connection? Trump isn’t paying them back? After seeing Trump trash the National Prayer Breakfast with hate and vitriol, all I can think of is America is lost. I am truly frightened about what will be said at noon.
Still, Obama could’ve let us know about the Russian intrusion into some voter rolls across the country via a phishing email scam. Instead, we had to hear it from Reality Winner.
Trump declassifies whatever the hell he wants to.
Added:
Had he alerted us to that, maybe Winner would not have to be in prison.
In the summer of 2016 McConnell was blocking Obama’s Supreme court justice nomination and was determined to win by any means necessary. Why haven’t we explored the $$$ that flowed from Russia through the NRA to Moscow Mitch?
“Another, however, was the fear of giving the appearance that the White House was “siding with one candidate,” particularly as then-candidate Donald Trump was amping up his rhetoric about the election being “rigged” against him, officials noted to the committee.” I want to say that by the time Obama realized he was in a chess match with Putin, he’d been check-mated. Who would have guessed that the white knight–Mitch McConnell–was actually a black knight in disguise?
And then I realize–Obama should have guessed. He’d just been Merrick Garlanded. It wasn’t “uncharted territory.” Mitch McConnell had laid out the chart in public.
So unless something changes, we’ll get a redux and really have no way to know who wins in 2020. The DOJ will investigate nothing. If it appears to be the Democrat, Donald will refuse to give up the golden throne and his party will howl in unison about “rigging.” If it’s Donald, the Democrat will accept the result and raise some concerns, just like Abrams in Georgia.
What am I missing?
the potential consequences were “purposely left ambiguous by the President in an effort to intimate that a range of diplomatic, economic, [redacted] options were available to use in response to Russia.”
Redacted = some sort of cyber warfare response?
n an addendum to the report, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Cornyn (R-TX), Ben Sasse (R-NE), and James Risch (R-ID) criticized the Obama administration for being “inept.”
Given all of these Senators are GOP, I knew at the end of the above paragraph exactly what the addendum would contain: bad faith arguments about how It’s all Obummer’s fault! while they continue to bear hug trump and, by extension, Putin.
Between the Russians and their American Gaga Over Putin co-conspirators who needs enemies?
Perhaps the same reason FoP (Friend of Putin) Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal’s $200 million investment for an the world’s largest aluminum mill in … wait for it … Kentucky has received so little scrutiny.
Wyden wrote. “I believe that warning the public about a foreign influence campaign should not depend on the support of both parties, particularly when one of the parties stands to gain politically from that campaign. But that is how the Obama Administration felt.”
Wyden turned out to be right, but Obama’s course was the inevitable one for a man wanting to unite the nation. Obama’s problem was not in failing to recognize the threat from Russia to our democracy, but rather an optimism about America leading to a reluctance to accept the threat to our democracy was joined by McConnell, Trump, and now clearly every Republican Senator, except for one.
